Inexplicable Ink
by tt22123
Summary: Draco comes back to the dorm only to spy some ink on Harry's hip. What has our saviour gone and done to himself now?
1. CopyRight

Any of the characters portrayed within this story do not belong to me, I am merely borrowing them from their oh-so-amazing original authors. I do not make any money from this story and it is not to be published or to be used for others purposes other than reading on this site where I have posted it. The original author has all right to this story and I do not claim to own anything other than the plot. I wish I owned the world and the characters but alas I am a book binder/restorer, not an author.


	2. Chapter 1

Draco came into their dorm room only to see Harry curled up in his bed. A small smile graced Draco's lips at the thought of the shorter boy led in his bed. His pale grey eyes followed the curve of Harry's spine, taking in the sight of his boyfriend's body, under he was sidetracked. Curling up had lifted up Harry's shirt slightly, revealing a thin strip of his smooth skin, and what looked like a piece of a tattoo.

"If you're just going to stand there watching me, can you not?" Dean was somewhat shocked to hear Harry's sleep roughened voice ring out through the room.

"I thought that you were asleep."

"I was, but you don't survive being on the run from a madman, while destroying his soul, if you can't tell when you are being watched at any point."

"Sor-"

"Don't apologise, just join me or stop staring at me, I want to sleep some more."

"Well you are in my bed," Draco joked.

"You're right. I'll move," Harry replied, knowing exactly how Draco would react to his words.

Draco slowly walked closer to his bed, removing shoes, robes and tie before curling himself around Harry's back and wrapped an arm around his waist, effectively pinning him there. "No, stay," Draco said in what could almost considered to be a growl. Harry smiled to himself as he linked his hand with Draco's over his stomach and drifted off to sleep.

Draco woke up before Harry and placed a small kiss to his shoulder blades causing the young of the two to stir and lean back further into the gentle embrace.

"Not that I have a problem with waking up like this but, may I ask, what was wrong with your bed this afternoon?"

"There was no you. At least in your bed I am able to imagine that you're there too. Sorry, I won't do it again." Draco pulled slightly on Harry's shoulder, turning said boy slightly, enabling him to lean over and place his lips to Harry's in a chaste kiss.

"I believe that I said that I didn't mind waking up like this. I don't mind you being in my bed. I was merely curious hun. Although that's not the only thing that I'm curious about." As he said those final words, Draco moved their interlinked hands to rest over Harry's left hip. At this movement Harry knew what Draco was referring to so he pulled his hand back, pulled down his shirt, and moved to his open bed. Led in the foetal position on his left side, Harry pulled his covers over him and ignored the blonde boy on the other side of the room.

In that very instant Draco had never felt more guilty, more idiotic, for bringing something up, something that soon proved to be personal. He was going to leave Harry alone, to let him have some space, but then he saw the covers begin to shake as the boy beneath them started to silently cry. It was like a shot through Draco's heart to see his boyfriend so broken. He moved across the room, approaching slowly, until he could kneel on the floor next to Harry's bed. Reaching forward, Draco wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb causing Harry to look at him.

"I'm sorry that I upset you Harry. I truly didn't mean to do so. Please, scream at me, hit me, hate me, just please stop crying. I hate you being upset."

Harry showed no sign that he was listening to Draco, other than getting out of his bed to kneel with Draco, well, more like to sit on Draco. He pushed the pale boy back, so he was no longer kneeling but rather sitting on his feet, before placing himself on his lap. As soon as Harry had settled he felt arms wrapping around him, pulling him closer so he rested his head in the crook of his boyfriend's neck.

"I am incredibly sorry Harry."

"Stop apologising Dray. Please? I'm fine, I mean, I'm sorry that I pushed you away it's just that I never wanted anyone to see that, least of all you."

"If I'm not to apologise, nor are you. I shouldn't have brought it up, I should have known that you would have if you wanted me to know. It was private, I should have waited to see if you would approach the subject."

"It's fine, honestly Dray." Harry lifted Draco's left sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark. "It's just that you aren't the only one of us to have been marked. Been branded. Been claimed as belonging to someone other than yourself." With these words Harry shifted back and lifted his shirt so that Draco could see the tattoo.

Across Harry's hip was an enlarged version of the Dark Mark with some runes in a circle surrounding it, that was what Draco figured he must have seen previously.

"What's with the runes? What do they say?"

"I don't know what they say, thus far no one has ever been able to translate them. As for why, we know that if I knew the right spell I am able to remove the mark using Parseltongue so the runes are to prevent me from ever being able to do so. Everybody thought that the mark referred to in the prophecy was my scar but we were all wrong. This was him 'marking me as his equal'. It can be covered if I get a muggle tattoo but the design I had drawn now seems a bit... odd. Besides, I kind of want to know what the runes say before they get covered."

"I'm sorry baby. What was your design? Why not just take a picture of the runes and have them translated from that? Or is it because you don't know if anything will happen because of them?"

"Don't be, it's not your fault." Harry reached over to his bedside drawers and pulled out a sketchpad. He flipped it to the correct page and handed it over to Draco so he could see the design that he had done. "I could take a picture I suppose, I don't know why that had never occurred to me before. It wasn't in case anything had happened."

When Harry had finished talking Draco looked down at the drawing pad in his hands, taking in the design. "Did you do this? The detail is exquisite, what's so odd about it?" Draco couldn't take his eyes off the drawing of two dragons intertwined in a circle, one red and one green, seemingly flying around one another for all eternity.

"Yes I did, thank you. Well I just, I thought that it would be odd to get it now since your name is Latin for dragon and we haven't even been going out for a year but people, you included, might think that it is just because of you, marking me as belonging to you."

"Unless you got the tattoo 'Property of Draco Malfoy' I would not think it for me, not that I'd object to that though, as for everyone else, who cares what they think. You're the saviour of the Wizarding World, they are always going to have opinions about everything that you do. I think that it is absolutely gorgeous and it being designed by you only makes it better in my eyes. One question though, why those colours? Why red and green?"

"Thank you Dray. There were a few different reasons I suppose. At first it was just because those are my favourite colours, then I thought of it as good and evil. Then Gryffindor and Slytherin and the rivalry between them. Finally I came to realise the real reason behind it, I think, it is to represent the final battle. Me against Voldemort. Expelliarmus against Avada Kedavra. Red against green. Both trying to defeat the other but they are too equally matched to do so. I don't want to forget what happened and the lives that were lost that night so this seemed like an appropriate way to do that."

"It's perfect." Draco pressed a kiss to the corner of Harry's lips to consider the matter to be finished for the night.

In the next school holidays Draco and Harry went off to a muggle town and to a parlour that specialised in cover ups. Harry still hadn't found the right spell that they would need to remove the mark from Draco's forearm so he got one done as well. Harry left with his two dragons while Draco got the Slytherin and Malfoy Crests, one on each forearm, but they had to go back to get them coloured during the following holiday. Finally the two boys were able to begin fully healing from their pasts although Harry never did find anyone who was able to translate the circular runes.


End file.
